


Pinned

by justheretobreakthings



Series: Voltron Bingo [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt Pidge | Katie Holt, Missions Gone Wrong, Protective Keith (Voltron), Set early in the series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 02:56:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16053998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justheretobreakthings/pseuds/justheretobreakthings
Summary: Pidge finds herself trapped under wreckage during a mission, and Keith is the one to grow worried when she's not replying on the comms.





	Pinned

_“Pidge? Pidge, do you read?”_

The voice was quiet, distant, as it rang tinny and sharp through the helmet’s speakers, and even in the relative silence around her it was difficult to hear. Pidge wondered why that was. She hadn’t adjusted the volume setting, had she? At least, she couldn’t remember having done so.

Although, if she had done it in the last few minutes… she was having trouble remembering those as well. She had to take a moment to concentrate, pull at her memory. They had been on a mission, that was it. A Galra outpost on a planet Voltron was working to liberate. And they’d split up to go after different targets.

Pidge had been breaking into a supply reserve, she remembered, when… yes, she’d been spotted. Then been able to hack into the outpost’s internal network and get the sentry bots off their backs, but that didn’t take care of the sentient guards. Luckily even after the guard hastily demanded backup before attacking, she still hadn’t had to fight off many guards. The others at the outpost must have been preoccupied, what with Lance and Hunk raiding the central hangar, Keith going after the armory, and Shiro sabotaging the comms hub. The team splitting up had really spread the outpost thin.

Of course, it still hadn’t been an easy fight, especially on her own, and with the guards’ oversized weaponry and the supply reserve being as structurally unsound as it had been…

Ah. That probably explained where she was now.

With a colossal effort she pried her eyes open and squinted at the world around her. She could see the starry sky peeking in through remains of the walls and ceiling in the corner of the reserve at the edge of her vision, the steel ceiling beams that had been holding the structure in place now blasted apart and wrenched at angles, while railings and a steel stairway that had previously graced the wall now lay crashed to the floor.

She didn’t see or hear any movement, nothing from any of the guards she’d been fighting before. They must have been taken down as well when their weaponry had brought this section of the building crashing down around them. Fucking idiots.

Deciding that she should probably get up and rejoin the fight, Pidge started to pull her elbow in to hoist herself up and get back to standing, only to immediately find herself stymied by two factors. One was the wave of dizziness that crashed over her when she tried to lift herself up. She hadn’t noticed the throbbing in her skull before now, but suddenly it was there and powerful and trying very hard to be the only thing on her mind.

The second was the fact that she realized she  _couldn’t,_  physically, lift herself up. As she tried to pull her right arm underneath her to lever herself, she discovered there was no space for it. Something was pinning her down to the floor, and she was stuck on her side, her right arm awkwardly splayed out beside her, the rest of her pressed to the ground by whatever it was on top of her. One of her legs seemed to have a little wiggle room, but the other she couldn’t quiet feel, and a sharp pulse of pain came shooting all the way up to her hip when she tried moving it.

She sighed and shut her eyes as she waited for the ache to abate. Great. Just fan-fucking-tastic. She was stuck here – she couldn’t get whatever was on top of her to budge in the slightest – and it looked probable that her leg was broken. The least she could say on the bright side was that she hadn’t been crushed completely; she probably would have been if she hadn’t been wearing her armor. She would have shuddered at the thought if she had been able to move.

Speaking of her armor, she still wasn’t sure what was going on with her helmet. The voices from her speakers were still barely audible as she heard them talking over each other.  _“Hunk, cover me, I’m gonna – ” “Pidge?” “They’re firing from your eight o’clock, watch it – ” “Pidge, do you copy?”_

“Yeah,” Pidge grunted. “I copy. I think I’m – ”

_“Pidge, come in.”_

She was pretty sure the voice was Keith’s. Leave it to him not to listen, she thought as she let out a frustrated breath through her nose. “I said, I copy. But I think I’m down for the count so – ”

_“Shiro, Pidge isn’t responding.”_

_“I know, I know, we’ll have to – ”_

_“Lance, on your right!”_

What the –

With a tight frown, Pidge opened her eyes again, and noticed for the first time that, although her vision was blurred on the edges, it was otherwise completely unobstructed. No readouts, no crosshairs, no helmet interior on the border of her sights.

She tilted her head back, fighting off the dizziness the movement brought, to see her helmet sitting a couple of feet away from her on the ground. Oh. Well, that explained why the voices from the speakers were so quiet. And why the mic wasn’t picking up her voice.

And why her head felt like someone like someone had dropped a car on it.

Pidge groaned and let her head lay flat again, since it was swimming too much for her to do anything else for longer than she absolutely had to. The voices from the helmet kept up, but she was losing focus, and it had been a strain to hear them in the first place. So she let the sound of a back-and-forth between Shiro and Keith become a buzz in the background as she felt herself drifting off.

That is, she drifted until a new noise made its way into the mix. Her eyes shot open at the muffled, rhythmic thumps. They were echoing in the remains of the building, so it was hard to tell where they were coming from, or how close they were. But she could at least identify _what_ they were: footsteps.

She held her breath, mentally cursing her luck. She had taken care of the other guards at the reserve, and with the building wrecked as it was, she had figured her job was over for the time being. The other paladins should have been keeping the rest of the outpost too busy to want to come snooping around in the wreckage. But apparently someone else was on their way, and Pidge was certainly in no shape to fight.

She could only hope that whoever had arrived didn’t notice her presence, but that hope was dashed when she realized that the other paladins’ voices were still coming out through her helmet. They were quiet, yes, but if someone was searching thoroughly for intruders, they might still be able to notice the sound. And Pidge recalled it being mentioned before that Galra have keener senses than humans, including their hearing ability, so that was another point against her.

Desperately she stretched her arm out as far as it could reach. If she could just get to her helmet so she could turn off the volume of the comm… but she discovered to her dismay that the helmet was just out of reach of her fingertips. And the footsteps were getting louder.

Her heartbeat fluttered as the steps approached, and she brought her arm back in to reach for her bayard. The weapon was pressed to the ground by her hip where it was holstered, but when she hovered her hand nearby and concentrated hard, the bayard found its way into her hand of its own accord.

Just in time, too, as the moment she felt the weight of the bayard in her hand, a shadow fell over her. Pidge blinked upward to see the looming figure of a Galra soldier, in one of the outpost’s guard uniforms, a gun held two-handed across his chest. The moment his yellow eyes locked onto hers, the Galra grinned.

“Thought I’d find some– ” he began, but was interrupted when he took a hunk of metal to the face as Pidge’s bayard shot out at him. Normally she tried to aim for limbs, but with where the guard was standing and where Pidge was pinned, it was awfully difficult to aim for anything besides the face. Fortunately, this seemed to work out, since she could hear something shatter and the guard let out a howl of pain.

She retracted the bayard, then shot it out again. The Galra ducked away this time, but that gave the bayard the opportunity to boomerang back wrap around his arm. Pidge gritted her teeth and pulled at the bayard even as she let a bolt of electricity out, sizzling as it traveled up the bayard’s wire and into the guard. He cried out as he seized up with the force of the electricity, crashing to the ground.

The shock died out, and the wire started to unravel for her to retract the bayard once more, but she was surprised when it was suddenly halted. The guard panting on the ground had grabbed hold of the wire, and was tugging it back with all his might. Pidge growled and sent another shockwave through, but, despite the obvious pain that washed over the guard’s face, he held fast and yanked again. One tug, two – on the third tug he put all the weight he possessed behind it, and to her horror Pidge found the grip of her bayard ripped out of her grasp.

The guard clambered slowly to his feet, and Pidge could feel her pulse racing. She was unarmed now, she was pinned, and the guard was reaching down to pick up the firearm that had fallen to the ground moments before.

God, she was fucked.

The guard heaved out panting breaths as he took up his weapon, turning back to Pidge with fury written all over his face. He lifted the gun, and Pidge’s eyes flew shut as she anticipated the inevitable blast.

The inevitable blast that didn’t come.

Instead, the guard yelled out again amidst a sudden crash, and Pidge chanced a peek. Where the guard had been standing there was now a flurry of red and white, and as she watched, Keith brought his sword down on the guard over and over, fast as she had ever seen him do it.

Keith didn’t slow until the guard was completely down for the count. Pidge was pretty sure the guard wasn’t dead, just unconscious. She would have been perfectly cool with either.

Keith panted as he got his bearings, sheathing his bayard and turning to Pidge, meeting her gaze where she lay pinned on the ground. “You – you weren’t answering on the comms,” he said simply through his huffing breaths.

“Yeah,” Pidge replied. “Yeah, I wasn’t. Did, uh, did Shiro send you to check on me, or…?”

Keith shook his head. “No, I just – I was, um, I thought you were – you – you weren’t answering… on the comms…”

Pidge stared up at him. “Wait, you – you were worried?”

“Well, um – ”

“What about the armory? Did you finish up there?”

Keith shrugged. “I wasn’t sure there’d be time.”

“Oh.” There was silence between the two of them, save for Keith’s breaths that were gradually returning to their normal volume and pace. Keith had been worried. Worried enough to have abandoned his part of the mission to check up on her. That didn’t quite seem like Keith. Hunk, he would be the type to fret over a teammate that much. Shiro was protective over all of the paladins. Lance was caring and, as a bonus, really loved being a hero. Keith, though, the one who would shoot off on missions on his own, lone wolf Keith?

Although, the more she thought about it… Keith separating from the group was never to leave the others, any one of them, behind or in danger. When he went Leeroy Jenkinsing into a fight, the danger was all on him. Pidge had always put it down to stubborn single-mindedness, and she was pretty certain the others saw it the same way. But she had never considered the fact that when he did this, he was leaving his teammates safer than himself.

Maybe him leaving his part of the mission to check on her shouldn’t be so surprising after all.

“Hey, Keith?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. For taking down that guy. And for, you know – worrying.”

“Oh. Um, right. You’re welcome.”

Keith stance stiffened and he didn’t meet her gaze, and Pidge started to roll her eyes, only to abandon the effort when doing so brought that goddamn dizziness back. “Hey,” she said. “Could you, uh – would you mind helping out with one more thing?”

“What?”

Pidge lifted her arm to gesture toward the collapsed structure on top of her. “Could you see if you can move this? I’m kinda stuck.”

“Oh. Sure.” Keith hurried over and looked at the rubble. “It’s – it’s mainly one beam that’s got you stuck,” he said after a once-over. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see if I can…”

He left Pidge’s line of sight as he positioned himself to try and move the beam out of the way. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, then, there was the very slightest movement in the beam. Pidge wouldn’t have noticed it at all if it hadn’t budged her leg, jostling it ever so slightly, but just enough that it sent pain pulsing up and down the limb. Her breath caught and she let out a groan of pain.

Immediately Keith was back at her side, staring down at her with wide, concerned eyes. “Sorry!” he said. “Did that – did that hurt?”

“No, Keith,” Pidge grunted. “That was obviously a moan of pleasure.” Keith’s eyes widened further and his face started to redden. “Oh my god, Keith, that was a joke,” Pidge said hastily. “Yes, it fucking hurt, I think my leg’s busted.”

“Oh.”

“But keep going.”

“But – ”

“Yeah, it’s gonna hurt, but I gotta get unstuck, right? So go ahead, keep lifting. I’ll power through.”

Keith bit his lip and glanced toward Pidge’s leg, then ran his eyes along the length of the beam. Pidge could practically see gears in his head turning, although to what end she didn’t know. “I – I think I can get it off quick. It’ll hurt but – ”

“Hey, if it gets me off the ground, I’m game. Go ahead and rip off the band-aid.”

“Okay,” Keith said with a nod. He ducked away and pried the gun from the incapacitated guard’s hands, then turned back toward Pidge.

“Uh, Keith?” she said cautiously. “I don’t think you can kill the beam.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Keith said, lifting the gun, turning and angling it upward.

“Keith, what are you – ?”

Her ears rang as the gun blasted, and another crash resounded. Pidge’s vision went white as agony suddenly surged through her leg, but it started to fade as quickly as it had begun in the first place. She panted as she focused her eyes again, and noticed a lightness over her body that hadn’t been there before. The beam, as she could see once her vision returned, was about a foot above her now, no longer pinning her to the ground.

She felt hands under her arms, dragging her away from the wreckage. She grunted in pain at the movement to her leg, and Keith muttered apologies into her ear as he brought her away.

“You’re, uh, you’re probably not up for walking, huh?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“All right.” He let out a breath and squatted down next to her. “Guess we’re piggy-backing it then?”

Pidge blinked up at him. “Wait, you sure? You’re okay with that?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“… No reason,” Pidge replied. “Yeah, let’s piggy-back.”

She hooked her arms over Keith’s shoulders and let him get her into position before he slowly stood, bringing his hands up to grip her arms. Pidge had to bite her lip at first as her leg knocked against Keith, but Keith seemed to have noticed, and stepped carefully as possible to keep the leg from bumping around.

“So,” she said as they started walking. “What did you do to get that beam out of the way?”

“Well, um,” Keith started slowly. “Well, the beam was long, and some of that walkway and staircase stuff was still up, pretty much right above you, and, uh, it looked heavy, and – and you see that crate there under the beam that’s up at an angle? It looked like a, uh… what do you call the middle part of a teeter-totter?”

“The fulcrum?”

“Yeah, that. So, um, so I thought, if I blasted some of that railway down and it landed over on the other end of the beam, then maybe it could – ”

“Keith,” Pidge interrupted. “Did you just save me… using _physics?”_

“Um, I guess?” Keith said. “I mean, I know some stuff. And it’s not like I can’t hear it when you and Hunk talk physics.”

“Sure, but, do you actually, like, listen?”

“Yeah? Why?”

Pidge squeezed her arms tighter around Keith. “Nothing, no reason. And, um, thanks again. For your help.”

“It’s no problem.”

“I mean, you didn’t get to finish up at the armory, did you?”

“Nah, but, well – ” Pidge could hear the shrug in his voice even if he didn’t actually lift his shoulder, what with Pidge currently dangling from them. “This was more important.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it really was.”


End file.
